These Spurs' playoffs are for Hill

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DALLAS — For much of the past week, Spurs players and coaches have gone about their business with one eye on the NBA scoreboard. With the playoff stakes high each night, the future being constantly rearranged by other teams in other cities, it was only natural for them to want to keep tabs.

George Hill never had to fight that urge, because he never had it in the first place.

“I don't pay attention to none of it,” Hill said. “I'm just not that type of person. I really don't want to know what else is going on in the NBA.”

Hill, it seems, is content to learn his team's playoff fate the moment he is handed a travel itinerary.

“I just go where they say we're going,” Hill said, “and we just strap it up.”

The Spurs enter their season finale tonight at Dallas still unsure of where they will be strapping it up once the playoffs open this weekend.

George Hill, shooting around Minnesota's Darko Milicic, is a serious contender for the league's most improved player award. It's quite a change for a player who wasn't deemed ready by Gregg Popovich for the playoffs a year ago. less

George Hill, shooting around Minnesota's Darko Milicic, is a serious contender for the league's most improved player award. It's quite a change for a player who wasn't deemed ready by Gregg Popovich for the ... more

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George Hill, shooting around Minnesota's Darko Milicic, is a serious contender for the league's most improved player award. It's quite a change for a player who wasn't deemed ready by Gregg Popovich for the playoffs a year ago. less

George Hill, shooting around Minnesota's Darko Milicic, is a serious contender for the league's most improved player award. It's quite a change for a player who wasn't deemed ready by Gregg Popovich for the ... more

These Spurs' playoffs are for Hill

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Lose, and they are locked into the seventh seed and a first-round rematch with the Mavericks. Win, and it could open a box of other possibilities.

This much is certain: No matter where their charter plane touches down to start the playoffs, the Spurs will be happy to have Hill on it.

In his second season, Hill is averaging 12.7 points, up 6.7 from his rookie year. His shooting percentage has skyrocketed, especially from 3-point range, where he makes 40.1 percent.

A versatile defender, Hill has started 42 games, both in place of point guard Tony Parker and beside him. Since the preseason, coach Gregg Popovich has evolved from calling the 23-year-old Hill “my favorite player” to “probably the most improved player in the league.”

“I saw a lot of potential in him as a rookie,” veteran Manu Ginobili said. “When I saw him this year being more aggressive and more reliable, it was a great surprise.”

The last time Hill visited Dallas in April, it was as an afterthought. A year ago, he entered his inaugural NBA postseason without a rotation spot.

“This playoff probably isn't for him,” Popovich said then, explaining the playoffs are for players who “feel very confident in what they're doing.”

As a rookie, Hill admits he did not.

“I understood,” Hill says now. “You get mad as a player, because you want to be out there. But at the same time, you understand the coach is going to go with people he feels comfortable with.”

Popovich feels old-socks comfortable with Hill now. He is primed to play a part in whatever playoff run the Spurs make, a development that began during the run the Spurs did not make last season.

In a futile first-round series against Dallas, various Mavericks guards — from J.J. Barea to Jason Terry — took turns torching the Spurs. Popovich, despite his pre-series protestations, inserted his rookie in the final three games for defensive purposes.

His number finally called, Hill averaged nearly eight points, better than his regular-season average, and helped give the Spurs a chance against Dallas' backcourt arsenal.

“Not really getting a chance last year to prove myself, that put a fuel to my fire in the summertime,” Hill said. “I wanted to come back a whole new player.”

Hill has. That is evident in his rising numbers, his rising minutes and his rising stature.

Further proof: When Hill went down for four games with a strained ankle tendon earlier this month, it threatened the Spurs' hopes of vacating eighth place. Now that he's back, it appears Hill — and not Parker — could be the Spurs' starting point guard to begin the postseason.

“He's been really good,” Ginobili said. “He's the one that guards all the toughest opponents. He's been making shots. He's been important for us.”

What a difference a year makes.

Last season, the playoffs weren't for Hill. This season, the Spurs couldn't imagine the playoffs without him.